Developer Anxiety, we’re not alone

Yesterday I was approached by a developer, apprentice, friend, and sometimes mentor, who was having some personal issues. I consider this person to be very strong, and capable of great things. I’ve watched over some years, and I’m really impressed with their progress personally as well as professionally. However, these facts only increased the shock of what they revealed to me, and must have been very difficult for them to share.

During the conversation it was revealed how they’re experiencing HUGE anxiety, complete with panic attacks, and are even consulting a physician who prescribed medication for it. As this person spoke I could see the anxiety levels grow within through their body language , and witnessed the “deer caught in headlights” look as they wrestled on the precipice of going into another panic attack. Though I had someplace I needed to be, I knew I couldn’t leave this person alone to struggle as I had so often in the past. So I lingered, and we talked until the ebb had calmed.

My heart went out to my friend because I’ve dealt with the same feelings and problems, and had always done it alone. (Except for a few trips to the ER in past years to ensure it wasn’t really a heart attack.) Oh, how well I can recall the feelings of fear and doubt. Not knowing when my body will randomly boost my adrenalin to extreme levels that push me over the edge, fighting for my next breath until my chest loosens again.

Yes, I know I “seem” different in person as I talking loudly and laughing at conferences. It has taken me many years to get to that point. And yes, inside I’m constantly forcing down the roiling anxiety that never truly subsides. So don’t get caught up in the stereotypical idea that someone with anxiety is this lonely person crying while huddled in a ball in the corner. That is not me. My stress and anxiety doesn’t come from being around people (unless they’re stupid), or from public speaking and such things. I’m fairly social, but stress by other things such as deadlines, lack of requirements, distractions, fear of failure, and bad code, can be just as damaging.

Another common misconception is that anxiety is caused by the stress of the moment, which is simply not true. A doctor I consulted with in the past informed me that anxiety can be caused by stresses from as long as six month ago. So moving to a new home may seem OK at the time, but up to 6 months from now we suffer from the effects of the stress. So, by the time we have an anxiety attack it’s too late to fix it. All we can do is deal with the anxiety and push through it somehow.

For each of us the cause is slightly different, because we each struggle with our own problems and/or OCDs. For my friend it was developer related stresses that many of us deal with:

Working on a development team and not kept busy enough, so we internalizing the many things that weigh on our shoulders in such situations. Will we be downsized because someone realizes we’re not busy? What should we do with our time? Is the company failing due to lack of feature requests? Is it fair to collect a paycheck for filling time? Am I not good enough? And the list goes on.

Working on a codebase that really needs a major refactor, but nobody will give the OK to do it.

Witnessing a company rewriting an application, and realizing it’s as bad as the original.

Wanting to contribute, but not knowing how to start. Sure, it’s easy to say, “Just pick a project and start.” But in reality it’s not that easy internally.

Feeling you’re alone, or perhaps you’re some “weirdo” because nobody else speaks about these things.

Some advice I gave, based on how I handle things:

Tension Tamer tea by Celestial Seasons.

Licorice root capsules twice a day when stress is high. (but as one commenter added, can cause side-effects)

Learning how to say “no” to tight deadlines.

Take a walk during lunch time.

Read a book. Not a technical one. Something not related to work. Maybe something inspirational, or a fiction.

Learned how to gather requirements for projects, and do proper time estimates.

Running, or some other physical activity to get the heart rate up 20 minutes or more a day.

Talk with others, even though we would rather be alone. (maybe even professional listeners)

Join, or create, a user group to pull others like me together.

Teach others how to create better code, so I don’t need to see bad code as often. (never ending)

Work from home.

Get a new job. Not a new profession. (extreme, but sometimes it’s the only way)

Get an annual checkup, so I know I’m healthy and not having a heart attack when anxiety kicks in.

I don’t really have the answers, nobody does. But felt I should create this post and put it out there. Perhaps others will read it and realize they’re not alone. And sometimes just knowing that can help lessen the stress levels.

How do you handle the stress?

NOTE: I received permission from my friend to share this story, so it wouldn’t cause any more stress and anxiety by sharing it without their knowing.

I sometimes wonder if my stress is related to more than just being really busy. I recognize myself a lot in the stories I hear. On the other hand, I often wonder whether I’m not just overreacting, and it’s indeed just stress. I really can’t figure that out. Surely, hearing stories like this makes me feel that there’s people that have much worse “issues” than I have, but I definitely sometimes have “issues” as well.

I saw @GreggyB’s talk at Laracon, now seeing this. Glad that this subject is becoming easier to talk about. I’d love to know if there are existing groups out there that talk about these things. In the mean time, might be worth doing a NomadPHP style group on dev mental health, that is language agnostic.

Adam, thank you for putting this on your blog. Having just gotten out of a horrible work environment (not even 5 months ago) and I’m still feeling the horrendous anxiety from leaving the job. I found it a bit ironic that my previous employer was hitting every single item on the stressors list you created. There were a couple of other things that happened that also made the work environment more anxious for myself. Things like an open work space, with distracting background noise and lack of spaces for quiet, alone time. Or the fact that my previous employer sat me down after 3 months of working for them to tell me that the rest of the development team thought I had a body odor problem (in the meeting they seriously said “You stink pretty bad”) and that I was a “know-it-all” that was trying to make suggestions on processes/code/ideas that have been developed on in the past number of years the company had been in business.

Sorry for unleashing my small bit of anxiety I have been dealing with on your comments section, but it is things like this that make me question my love of developing with PHP, as I’ve run in to my fair share of overbearing, overly critical bosses, and it seriously needs to change.

“I don’t really have the answers, nobody does. But felt I should create this post and put it out there. Perhaps others will read it and realize they’re not alone. And sometimes just knowing that can help lessen the stress levels.”

It is really good of you to have put this on the open web. Knowing that you are not the only one facing these problems is very comforting. Thank you.

I would second the opinion on having some physical activity. Every time I go running, the day is just magically better.

Thank you so much! I am one year into my development career and can identify with everything you’ve mentioned, including the constant “faux heart attacks” at random points during the day. I thought I was the only one!

For me personally, I was following a lot of trendy programmers and web developers on Twitter, which seemed like a good idea when I was starting out but in reality made me constantly worry that I wasn’t keeping up with the industry enough when I saw all the different new technologies they were talking about every day, when of course it was this constant worrying that would ensure I definitely didn’t have the mindset to learn anything new!

I stopped following a lot of these programmers and instead subscribed to news outlets like ‘Slashdot’ and ‘Den of Geek’, reducing the programmer count to 2. I also added some nonsense accounts such as ‘The Onion’ and a bunch of professional wrestling journalists. This means that whenever I check Twitter now, it reduces stress rather than causing it!

I also found a wonderful book called “Code Complete” by Steve McConnell which I have started reading in my lunch breaks. The book is basically a guide to good programming practice, and made me realise that it is possible to code in a way that is logical and orderly and reduces the potential for stress much as possible, and like you the book makes heavy emphasis on building requirements before developing.

Stopping this comment before it becomes an article in and of itself! But thanks, this was the exact time that I needed to read something like this.

I think developers, anyone who writes software that really matters, are particularly susceptible. I’m not talking about someone who codes a pretty website for a small company, I’m talking about people working on core systems that people RELY on for things like accessing their money, security systems, and engine control systems in their car. These are the projects that will keep you up at night worrying about whether you left any bugs in the code.

The rub is that the general public have NO idea how thin the line is that these developers walk. If they do their job properly, thoroughly, then the product costs too much and nobody buys it. Or it misses time to market and the company slips behind its competitors.

The majority of code is pushed out in barely working state. That’s why we hear of problems like cars that suddenly stop on a freeway. If developers were given more time to finish their work, higher quality of code was prized over speed of development, then a whole industry would be less stressed and society would benefit as a whole. But everyone just wants the newest gadget faster and faster, and we are not patient.

I don’t know if this will help anyone, but I’ve started mindfulness meditation about 6 months ago, and that has seemed to drastically reduce my anxiety. It’s the only major change I’ve made in this time period, so I think it’s working. Maybe it might help someone here.

Wow, I am 32, experienced engineer in a Fortune 500 and doing pretty well for myself and now I have all problems you listed out above. Phew. The biggest thing for me is the apparent feeling that I am unable to keep up with new technologies, new toolkit versions, new domain stuff to learn and it feels like I am just not good enough and falling far behind. The truth is that people around me are just the same but the feeling is hard to shake off. I was putting it on some Mid life crisis sort of a situation. Glad to know it’s out there.

I think a lot of people even remotely related to the web/computer developer field can relate to this article for the simple fact that many who are drawn to the beauty of developing something so lonely are people become depressed enough to tap into their OCD to create something as they see fit. At least this is what i see in me and a lot of others around me and this article helps me to confirm that a little and also helps me feel less alone in my feelings. I wonder how many of you can relate to this.

I’m a developer and have OCD – diagnosed as a teen and under dr.’s care since my early 30s.

The way you use the term is wrong. Its a common mistake but since you’re talking about anxiety I feel compelled to call you on it.

OCD is all encompassing. Its not a momentary feeling that is relieved by straightening your keyboard which is what I think you mean when you say we all have our OCDs.

Believe me, I wish I could make it go away that easily.

Its actually an overwhelming, all consuming fear that some specifically horrible, terrifying thing will happen unless you perform certain acts. Those acts can range from checking the doors are locked 50 times a day to rituals and compulsions so complex and time consuming you cannot leave the house.

Its like a never ending panic attack. Can you imagine that? The only time it goes away is when you sleep. You wake up and its starts. You carry it around all day until you can work the coping strategies enough.

I have suffered from Impostor Syndrome for much of my career (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome). The more developers I talk to about this, the more I realize that I am not alone, and I have to believe that a lot of you commenting on this post experience something similar (just another source of anxiety).

There are only 3 things that work for me to manage my stress levels on an ongoing basis: exercise, meditation, and marijuana.

So many people identifying with what you wrote. I thought I’d throw my hat into the ring as well. I’ve got over a decade worth of dev experience and recently went through a very hard bout of anxiety. So hard that I started to see a therapist — and he confirms what you’re saying: even though things for me now are much calmer, 4 months ago they were not (in a big way). In fact, everything in my life was pretty swell, it didn’t make sense that I was feeling anxious — but as you both said: it can catch up to you quickly and without warning.

I’ve talked about burning out and not being a good enough developer and how they relate to anxiety in my personal blog. Its a very common syndrome and its wide spread to the profession. After burning out and visiting therapy i came to realize that in my particular case its related to security even though i had a great comfy job there was no reason that at the next day my boss could come and say you are done here pack your bags.

That was my number one cause. Its not about the money it was that at the time i was determining the fact that people needed me from the needs that the job had. I’ve gotten better at it by branching out and helping others outside of work.

I’ve been coding since I was 16 years old, and I’m now 32. I’ve struggled with Panic Attacks off and on since I started coding.

I thing that even if we enjoy our profession, bottom line is we use our brains much more than the average person is required to. Every. Single. Day.

My cousin has spent the last few years getting up to speed, and is now a developer as well, and it was funny true it was when he said “basically, this line if work is like having to take a test, every day”.

Students have to take finals. Attorneys may study to take the BAR. etc etc.

Developers have to walk in every day, and find solutions to problems they’ve never encountered before.

All this with no mention of the the REST of our lives, when we step away from the screen.

The only release valve I’ve personally found is physical activity, so now Hiking is my jam. But yes, every 6 months or so, I go through a 3 week period where I have a panic attack, then go through the cycle of fearing another one, and gradually that fades and I don’t deal with again for awhile.

I struggled with depression and anxiety for many years, and a lot of the concerns you highlight were certainly contributors. The most helpful things for me were:

– Exercise (I workout three days a week at least, but I started out just running 1-3 miles every other day)
– The book “The Power of Now” by Eckhart Tolle. The title makes it sound extremely cheesy, but it has great advice for getting the runaway thinking that leads to these types of outcomes under control.

am facing Imposter Syndrome. Although I love trying out new libs, I wonder why am I not coming up with such libs, inadvertently increasing my anxiety and making me feel like an imposter as a coder. I guess it could be solved with creating something of my own. But then again, It’s a retarded cycle in itself.

I ended up taking a year off after my last job because the stress built up so much. As programmers, we are always expected to be “on”. Most other jobs have down time built into them but if we are not at our desks, people think we’re slacking off. I think programmers should only work 3-4 hours today at the computer. Anything more than that pushes past our recovery limits.

Take vacations and getaways,
start running (5k then 10k then a half marathon, BE CAREFUL WITH THE FULL MARATHON)
Go to the gym,
Play silly videogames (like NES Remix)
Keep in touch with your mental and physical health,
Go to museums,
Take a walk in a park or a green area,
write about both technical and non technical things,

I would like to add: “Working on a side project”, for me I’ve tried many ways involving sport, reading , quite times but all felt like running away from the monster in the room.

Eventually, i though about building something unrelated to work, you know like when i was at college , no deadline, no customer, no budget keeping me from exploring & wasting some time on new tools … its basically quality time of coding, and it worked!!

– It gives back self confidence like no other success can
– Great feel of accomplishment
– Improved my skills & tools comfort zone (more self confidence)
– Helped me be more productive on work projects
…
..
– It’s just made me Happy

but watch-out, its addictive .. soon you won’t be comfy unless you have something to work on in free times

One thing people should be very careful of is “cure evangelism.” A lot of people are doing it in the comments. It’s a habit we particularly have as developers, giving advice about how to fix problems. The thing is:

1. There is no one solution, or set of solutions, for everyone’s mental health issues. What may work for you may in fact be detrimental for someone else. It can also be very disheartening if “the cure” doesn’t work for you.

2. Unless you are a trained mental health professional, it’s extremely unlikely you are qualified to assess a person’s condition and offer treatment options.

So please, please, avoid saying “this is great, do it!” You can say “this worked for me,” and that’s fine, but be very, very careful about offering advice. It in fact may do more harm than good.

I didn’t realize how anxious I was until it went away. Insomnia, existential crisis, emotional flooding, etc. Now I’m a happier camper. I have no idea how or why Cortisol Manager works. Maybe it’s just a placebo. But I don’t argue with results.

My gf also manages her adrenaline levels. The combo solved her insomnia.

Hi I’m Yongwoo from Korea. I’m a software engineer in Korea.
A month ago, I read the article “Developer Anxiety, we’re not alone” on your blog.
It’s very helpful to me. I’d like to thank you for sharing it.
Also, I just get to know that I’m not the only one who feel the anxiety.
For developers those who feel the same in Korea, can I translate the article to Korean and then post the translated article with the source of the article on my blog?

I’ve been struggling with mild (if one can name them so) panic attacks since 2005. I’m an anxious personality in general, and working as a developer has only made this worse.

I’ve so far paid about a year’s salary to doctors and medical exams – my health is good, but symptoms come and go. From headaches and chest pains to shortness of breath, dizziness, muscle pains, stomach cramps etc – all due to stress.

I found two ways out of this: 1) Became my own boss – you might say that it’s more stressful, but the stress is totally different and 2) Started writing. Writing seems to be even more beneficial to my calmness. I take all of my anger and anxiety out by writing humorous posts about software developers and project managers. In Greek, unfortunately, but it’s quite popular among Greek-speaking developers. I’ve recently tried to translate some of my posts (the one that can actually be translated) to English, here’s one: http://www.3tonsofcode.com/post/A-Project-Managers-Deepest-Thoughts

Hey Adam, thanks so much for being willing to talk about this. It takes courage.

I was just listening to an audiobook called ‘Rewire your brain’, and the author specifically mentioned that computer programming is especially associated with anxiety because we get a dopamine hit every time we’re able to solve a problem we’ve been working on. After that first hit, we continually are on a search for another dopamine hit. So it’s almost like an addiction, and then it causes anxiety when we’re not getting it.

It makes sense… Although my years of being primary support on weekends for a credit card company’s cardmember database, I’m pretty sure, doesn’t help.